There but for the grace of God Famous architect Martin (James Herrera), his wife Stevie (Christine Louise Marshall), and their gay teenage son Billy (Benedetto Robinson) are a highly and self-consciously cultured family.

Testing love On the weeknights when The Goat is off and Lucid Stage would otherwise be dark, Mad Horse is doubling everyone's Albee pleasure, if that's quite the right word for what this master playwright's work evinces.

Sacred bargain Early in his youth, an Italian named Antonio Salieri (the outstanding Blair Hundertmark) knelt in church, looked up, and saw a certain God: "An old, candle-smoked God with a mulberry robe, staring out at the world with a dealer's eyes."

Lorca's murderous Spaniards visit SPACE Just about a year ago, an irrepressible new grassroots theater ensemble in Portland surged to the stage with the gloriously unabashed boorishness of Ubu Roi , a gem of French proto-Absurdism.

Plus Blood Wedding, and other big shows of 2010 At the top of my 2011 must-see theater list is the remainder of MAD HORSE 's 25th season, a mouth-watering line-up of provocative scripts by some modern masters of the craft.

August was tops In my local orbits among both actors and theater-goers, one play of 2010 continues to be regularly hailed in conversation: GOOD THEATER 's momentous production of August: Osage County , a profane and exceptionally funny foray into Middle American generational pathos.

Wry humor Around this time of year, the vast majority of holiday entertainment — Nutcrackers both Victorian and burlesque; innumerable A Christmas Carols ; even the rogue Sedaris debauchery of The Santaland Diaries — is some sort of riff on a holiday that's at least nominally Christian.

Affairs of memory For years, married literary agent Jerry (Sage R. Landry) has conducted a love affair with Emma (Meredith Lamothe), the wife of his best friend, Robert (Patrick Molloy), a book publisher.

Comedy, not suspense The driving force of Hitchcock's 1939 film The 39 Steps is suspense, as unwitting bachelor Richard Hannay gets caught up in espionage, train escapes, weapons technology, and the future of Europe and the world.